Momentum - Business to Business Online Magazine MOMENTUM October 2019 | Page 40

NON-PROFIT OF THE MONTH
SHARON BAYUS, MA, LPC-S
President & CEO
Innovative Alternatives, Inc.
http://innovativealternatives.org
S
o, what kinds of ‘difficult people problems’
has IA solved these 30 years? Businesses
often have people who can’t get along with
anyone, who buck authority, who steal, who
do just enough to get by.... The big issues in
any organization—divisiveness, gossip, undermining,
threats to sue for unfair termination, allegations of
sexual harassment, bullying, gender or racial bias...
Poor leaders at some level, with poor prioritization,
communication, conflict resolution skills, personal
boundaries... IA has intervened successfully in all these
areas.
Consider a department of 24-hr shifts in conflict
for over 10 years. Customers, threatening to sue,
employees filing grievances, and the informal power
of a few employees ran off 6-8 Directors hired to fix
the department. These employees could get rid of
whomever they wanted, but the organization—state
funded, could not get rid of them without an act of
God. IA steps in after tens of thousands of dollars spent
internally by HR, EAP, administration, legal department,
1.5 to 2 times the salary of every employee lost; and
resolves everything within 3 weeks of interventions—
Corporate Culture Surveys, individual interviews
and team mediations to develop Team Norms for
how coworkers could shut down the behavior of the
problem employees. And it worked--for a fraction of
what they expected. Best of all, our earned revenue
supports our nonprofit purpose!
Worried about your child or grandchild in school?
IA implements Violence Prevention Programs—Peer
Mediation & Bully-Proofing with awesome results! Lots
of ‘people problems’ seek help from churches, broken
marriages, prodigal children, the stress of eldercare. IA
offers Ministry Assistance Programs to allow churches to
outsource counseling, mediation and training programs
to us or to train their volunteers internally to do so
ethically.
Family Reconciliation Mediation creates plans to
save marriages that have lost hope. Family Intervention
Mediation allows family members to express their deep
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concerns for a member who is drug or alcohol addicted,
or whom they worry may have an undiagnosed mental
health issue causing them to behave erratically. This
process confronts and diagnoses the problem and
creates written plans for treatment outlining each
person’s part in the solutions. If the person is unwilling
to get help, the family lays out boundaries and natural
consequences of that choice for the future, to prevent
further damage to others.
The worst suffering is caused by evil at the hands
of others. Consider a man whose Mother put him in a
drawer as an infant and toddler brother in a crib, then
set the house on fire. Neglected by both drug/alcohol
addicted parents most of their lives, his brother and
father committed suicide. As an adult, his daughter was
kidnapped, raped and murdered. He became suicidal
himself. How can counseling help all these issues? Ask
him. He says IA’s Victim assistance Program saved his
life. Even the most abused receive hope and healing at
IA. Tim Miller runs Texas Equusearch. Only a man who
has gone through his kind of pain can walk the road
with others in similar pain!